Large-scale forest inventories are important sources of forest information at the national level in individual countries. These surveys have undergone strong development in recent times, driven by new information needs and by advances in statistical-mathematical theory and in survey methods and techniques. In Italy, the first national forest inventory was carried out in the mid-1980s. A thorough review of the sampling design and survey protocols was carried out in the second inventory, and the third survey has just been completed. This chapter briefly describes the history and organisational structure of the Italian National Forest Inventory and summarises its content and products.
Forest health and multifunctionality are threatened by global challenges such as climate change. Forest health is currently assessed within the pan-European ICP Forests (International Co-operative Programme on Assessment and Monitoring of Air Pollution Effects on Forests) programme through the evaluation of tree crown conditions (defoliation). This paper analyses the results of a 24-year assessment carried out in Italy on 253 permanent plots distributed across the whole forested area. The results evidenced a substantial stability of crown conditions at the national level, according to the usual defoliation thresholds Defoliation > 25% and Defoliation > 60%, albeit with species-specific patterns. Within this apparent temporal stability, an increased fraction of extremely defoliated and dead trees was observed. Extreme defoliation mostly occurred in years with severe summer drought, whereas mortality was higher in the years after the drought. The results for singular species evidenced critical conditions for Castanea sativa Mill. and Pinus species, whereas Quercus species showed a progressive decrease in defoliation. Deciduous species, such as Fagus sylvatica L., Ostrya carpinifolia Scop. and Quercus pubescens Willd. suffer the loss of leaves in dry years as a strategy to limit water loss by transpiration but recover their crown in the following years. The recurrence of extreme heat waves and drought from the beginning of the XXI century may increase the vulnerability of forests, and increased tree mortality can be expected in the future.
The main goal of this study was to evaluate the potential of the Fisher-Shannon statistical method applied to the MODIS satellite time series to search for and explore any small multiyear trends and changes (herein also denoted as inner anomalies) in vegetation cover. For the purpose of our investigation, we focused on the vegetation cover of three peri-urban parks close to Rome and Naples (Italy). For each of these three areas, we analyzed the 2000–2020 time variation of four MODIS-based vegetation indices: evapotranspiration (ET), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), leaf area index (LAI), and enhanced vegetation index (EVI). These data sets are available in the Google Earth Engine (GEE) and were selected because they are related to the interactions between soil, water, atmosphere, and plants. To account for the great variability exhibited by the seasonal variations while identifying small multiyear trends and changes, we devised a procedure composed of two steps: (i) application of the Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) to each satellite-based time series to detect and remove the annual cycle including the seasonality and then (ii) analysis of the detrended signals using the Fisher-Shannon method, which combines the Shannon entropy and the Fisher Information Measure (FIM). Our results indicate that among all the three pilot test areas, Castel Volturno is characterized by the highest Shannon entropy and the lowest FIM that indicate a low level of order and organization of vegetation time series. This behaviour can be linked to the degradation phenomena induced by the parasite (Toumeyella parvicornis) that has affected dramatically the area in recent years. Our results were nicely confirmed by the comparison with in situ analyzed and independent data sets revealing the existence of subtle, small multiyear trends and changes in MODIS-based vegetation indices.
Are the conditions of the Italian forests worsening due to extreme climatic events? Evidence from the national monitoring networks ICP Forests -CON. ECO.FOR.Tree defoliation and mortality are triggered in Europe by extreme climatic events that are recurring since the beginning of XXI century. Data from the ICP Forests monitoring networks reveal a general worsening of tree conditions in the last ten years, as consequence of the drought and heat waves that affected the Southern (2017) and Central Europe (2018-2019). In Italy a significant increase of defoliation and tree mortality, assessed on the extensive (Level I) monitoring network, was observed after the 2017 dry summer, which impacted mainly the broadleaved forests (beech and oak forests) in the peninsular regions. Coniferous forests of the alpine belt were severely impacted in 2021, probably because of the co-occurrence of multiple causes, involving windstorm and bark beetle attacks. Chestnut forests suffer from pest (insect and pathogen) attacks. The intensive (Level II) monitoring network provides cases of study and allows to carry out specific cause-effect studies concerning the physiological effects on the environmental impacts, as well to observe the ecological processes following the disturbing events. Defoliation caused by drought or pest attacks induces the loss of physiological defenses (namely nonstructural carbohydrates), that need several years to be restored. Then, the occurrence of more frequent and repeated heat and drought waves can produce irreversible effects. In this view, the long-term forest health monitoring is key to detect the extent and direction of changes in forest structure and composition, and represents an important tool for forest conservation and management.
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